Allahabad HC decides tripartite custody battle, gives child to foster mother

Prayagraj (UP): The Allahabad High Court has granted custody of a nine-year-old girl to a woman who fostered her since birth after she was found abandoned by a eunuch in Farrukhabad in November 2014.

The girl was caught in a complicated tripartite custody battle and over the last 17 months, she had been living in a government shelter home.

According to reports, the eunuch, Anjali, handed over the child to Meena after her community told her that she was not allowed to raise a girl child.

About eight years later, Anjali demanded the child back and when Meena refused to do so, she filed a complaint with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC).

Initially, the CWC found Meena fit to foster the child but later did a U-tern, citing a social assessment report of the district probation officer (DPO).

The custody battle was further complicated when Nitin Garg, an Agra-based businessman, filed an application on the advice of CWC, claiming that the child could be his daughter who went missing in November, 2015.

To clear the air, the High Court on November 24, 2023, ordered a DNA test of the child but the report came out as negative.

Child rights activist Naresh Paras who helped the petitioner in the legal battle said, “The girl was living at a government children home for the past 17 months. Following court orders, the foster mother got custody of the child. The court passed a detailed order and made critical remarks against the local authorities.”

The court in its order came down heavily on the law enforcement agencies, saying the child had to go through a “psychological trauma” all this while.

The bench ruled that the child’s custody should be given to Meena within an hour of her reaching the CWC with a copy of the order.

The division bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Manjive Shukla said, “Ignorance would have been bliss for the child. However, that umbrella is now destroyed and it stands exposed prematurely to hard realities of life, at a tender age of 9.”

“In ideal conditions, all children may grow up in the care and love of their biological parents. However, from times immemorial, foster care and adoption are established practices in all human societies. Taking a child by way of adoption or by way of foster care is neither contrary to practices prevailing in societies, nor it is a behavioural practice to be looked down upon. In fact, it is consistent with the goodness of human nature,” the court added.

IANS